If electromagnetic fields are all around us, why the heck haven’t we begun harvesting them, and using them as a power source? It seems that one Bremen-based designer has decided to do just that, building a special device that harvests electromagnetic energy, stores the power in batteries, and lets users then power other devices with the captured power.
Sounds pretty Sci-Fi meets Matrix, doesn’t it?
According to the designer, Dennis Siegel:
“So you can for example gain redundant energy from the power supply of a coffee machine, a cell phone or the catenary of a train by holding the harvester directly into the electromagnetic field whose strenght is indicated by a LED on the top of the harvester.
Depending on the strenght of the electromagnetic field it is possible to charge a small battery within one day.”
Siegel has built two different types of “harvesters.” One device harvests energy from lower frequencies below 100Hz, while another bigger model can capture higher frequencies (~100MHz, GSM 900/1800 MHz) from radio broadcasts, bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Talk about thinking outside the box. How long until we start getting iPhone cases with this kind of technology built into them? Could you imagine never having to plug your phone in to get a charge? It’s a long way off, considering it takes a whole day to charge one “small” battery, but man, can you imagine the potential?
